1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to a liquid developer dispersion, a method for preparing the liquid developer dispersion, a printing process using the liquid developer dispersion and an image forming apparatus using the liquid developer dispersion.
2. Description of Related Art
Liquid developer dispersions are known in the art and are used for electrophotography and developing electrostatic latent images formed on a latent image carrying member in a digital printing process using a digital printing apparatus. An example of such printing apparatus is provided in the U.S. Pat. No. 7,995,953 the content of which is incorporated into this application in its entirety by this reference. Liquid developer dispersions, also called liquid toners are usually made of a carrier liquid and a marking particle. The carrier liquid is a non-aqueous solvent carrier.
A problem of known liquid developer dispersions, is that the carrier liquid in the liquid developer dispersion is often volatile so that during transfusing or fixation of the marking particle on a transfer medium such as paper, the carrier liquid vaporizes in the atmosphere, which is harmful for the environment if the condensation of the carrier liquid is not fully controlled.
Another problem of liquid developer dispersions which are currently used is that the carrier liquid stays present after fusing in the final substrate. The remaining carrier liquid on the paper substrate accumulates during paper recycling, which causes disadvantages in paper recycling processes. In addition, the remaining carrier liquid can migrate to foodstuffs, when the paper is used for food packaging.